5 ms·

Wouldn't 20 years ago have less people using Mozilla/Firefox since everyone was still using IE6? I remember around that time i was still encountering several (p

Wouldn't 20 years ago have less people using Mozilla/Firefox since everyone was still using IE6? I remember around that time i was still encountering several (public, not internal) sites that refused to work with anything that wasn't IE6. I think at least nowadays people try to pretend they care about web standards.

Uvix 2y ago
There were some sites requiring IE6 but not that many, and the improvements like tabs were enough for people switch to Firefox where they could. Unfortunately Mozilla’s refusal to implement process-per-tab, combined with Flash’s instability, let Chrome eat their lunch.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  chrome eat their lunch for only one reason: everytime you were doing a google search, google literally begged people to download their browser while half of the smartphone were coming with google chrome by default. In the head of people google and chrome slowly became a synonym of internet the same way the ie icon used to be in the previous decade.
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    Beware of simplistic reasoning. What you mention was certainly a major reason, but not the only one. Another one was that Chrome was simply a better browser for many years for normal users (mainly because of its performance).
    - philistine 2y ago
      Yeah, a lot of people switched for its performance. For a while, it was the bringing you the efforts of both Apple and Google to improve the rendering. Couldn't be beat.
  - kryptiskt 2y ago
    Also, Google paid a ton of money to bundle the Chrome installer with Flash and Adobe Acrobat downloads.
  - Uvix 2y ago
    They're doing that now (and for the last several years). I don't remember them doing that back when Chrome overtook Firefox in 2012, though...
spookie 2y ago
Well, that hegemony happened by the end of the Netscape days, which prompted the infamous United States v. Microsoft Corp. case.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  We're getting the United States v. Google case so hopefully history doesn't repeat.
  - usrnm 2y ago
    I actually hope that history does repeat itself, and google gets severely punished
    - lightedman 2y ago
      If history does repeat itself, the punishment wont be very large, despite guilty judgment. Microsoft was found to have engaged in monopolistic practices, but was still given a relative slap on the wrist instead of outright broken up.
      - rvense 2y ago
        And Firefox got to where it was at its peak by being better than IE, not because of any pressure from political institutions. I think there are many parallel universes where Microsoft does in fact own the web.
    - miohtama 2y ago
      Microsoft did not get severely punished for bundling the IE. Google was force feeding Chrome to everyone at google.com.
    - BirAdam 2y ago
      Well, it would appear that Google will be forced to stop paying companies to make Google the default search. This is actually kind of a death for Mozilla as that’s where most of their money comes from.
pjmlp 2y ago
As someone doing Web development during 1999 - 2002, on a dotcom startup, there were enough people using Mozzilla browsers.
- mrinfinitiesx 2y ago
  Yeah. We were all sick of loading a website with Internet Explorer and getting 1930201 hot toolbars, blinking 'desktop buddies' and 32 new system tray icons with programs running. Phoenix saved us.
  - cgh 2y ago
    Konqueror says hello. I’m only half kidding, it was actually somewhat capable and I used it a lot. For those who don’t know, its legacy was khtml, famously forked into WebKit and Blink.
    - pino82 2y ago
      I cannot remember a moment when Konqueror felt good enough for me as a daily driver, but it was impressive anyways. From a community perspective, it would have been a great thing to push it forward further, spend resources on it, and have at least one web browser that isn't somewhat wicked. Admittedly, back then, we all hoped that Firefox would be that 'friendly' browser, and it probably truly was at that time. Time has changed. Now I'm forced to like a browser that is always just slightly less evil than a one that would even IE look friendly. And with every version we are now waiting when they also will drop the manifest v2 support for dubious reasons. And even if that will never happen, they will continue to find other ways to disappoint me. Yes, khtml was at least a nice time to remember. :) PS: My personal feeling is that "impressive but not good enough as a daily driver" was and is true for some more KDE apps. This is why I use Plasma Desktop, but barely any more of their apps than Dolphin and maybe kate to some degree. I know all you're going to say now about free software and how it works and so on, and you're right, but technically, it would be sooo much better if just half of the email client projects (or office suites, IDEs, photo editing, ...; you name it) would exist, but with more developer powers behind it. But I'm digressing......
kiwijamo 2y ago
Sadly I now see sites refusing to work unless you use Chrome even though there is no technical reason whatsoever why it should break under other standards-complaint browsers. I've seen all sort of tricks to detect non-Chrome-usage and the result is anything from a snarky message advising you to use Chrome (sometimes a very specific version and OS is specified as well!) at best or a blank page at worst. And yes every time I've seen this, it's happened on public facing sites -- I'm lucky that at $WORKPLACE we are a Microsoft shop, and Microsoft (ironically) seems to put some effort into ensuring their tools works across all the 3 major browser engines (with the possible exception of Teams but I reluctantly use the Electron app for that). Chrome has become the modern day IE. The mainstream population just haven't realized that yet to be fair, but this will become clear in the years to come and the next generation will wonder how the heck both IE and later Chrome become dominant.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  > and Microsoft (ironically) seems to put some effort into ensuring their tools works across all the 3 major browser engines I don't know why that's ironic. The Microsoft web teams have always had a focus on being fairly standards compliant. The Microsoft Browser team themselves definitely went down a route of stagnation with IE6, but a lot of that had to do with W3C's stagnation as much as Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior. They also implemented massively useful technologies that are ubiquitous today, such as XHR. They get a bad rap, for deserved reasons, but that decade of stagnation and non-Standard ActiveX controls wasn't fully on them.

Uvix 2y ago

There were some sites requiring IE6 but not that many, and the improvements like tabs were enough for people switch to Firefox where they could. Unfortunately Mozilla’s refusal to implement process-per-tab, combined with Flash’s instability, let Chrome eat their lunch.

prmoustache 2y ago
chrome eat their lunch for only one reason: everytime you were doing a google search, google literally begged people to download their browser while half of the smartphone were coming with google chrome by default. In the head of people google and chrome slowly became a synonym of internet the same way the ie icon used to be in the previous decade.
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  Beware of simplistic reasoning. What you mention was certainly a major reason, but not the only one. Another one was that Chrome was simply a better browser for many years for normal users (mainly because of its performance).
  - philistine 2y ago
    Yeah, a lot of people switched for its performance. For a while, it was the bringing you the efforts of both Apple and Google to improve the rendering. Couldn't be beat.
- kryptiskt 2y ago
  Also, Google paid a ton of money to bundle the Chrome installer with Flash and Adobe Acrobat downloads.
- Uvix 2y ago
  They're doing that now (and for the last several years). I don't remember them doing that back when Chrome overtook Firefox in 2012, though...

spookie 2y ago

Well, that hegemony happened by the end of the Netscape days, which prompted the infamous United States v. Microsoft Corp. case.

llm_trw 2y ago
We're getting the United States v. Google case so hopefully history doesn't repeat.
- usrnm 2y ago
  I actually hope that history does repeat itself, and google gets severely punished
  - lightedman 2y ago
    If history does repeat itself, the punishment wont be very large, despite guilty judgment. Microsoft was found to have engaged in monopolistic practices, but was still given a relative slap on the wrist instead of outright broken up.
    - rvense 2y ago
      And Firefox got to where it was at its peak by being better than IE, not because of any pressure from political institutions. I think there are many parallel universes where Microsoft does in fact own the web.
  - miohtama 2y ago
    Microsoft did not get severely punished for bundling the IE. Google was force feeding Chrome to everyone at google.com.
  - BirAdam 2y ago
    Well, it would appear that Google will be forced to stop paying companies to make Google the default search. This is actually kind of a death for Mozilla as that’s where most of their money comes from.

pjmlp 2y ago

As someone doing Web development during 1999 - 2002, on a dotcom startup, there were enough people using Mozzilla browsers.

mrinfinitiesx 2y ago
Yeah. We were all sick of loading a website with Internet Explorer and getting 1930201 hot toolbars, blinking 'desktop buddies' and 32 new system tray icons with programs running. Phoenix saved us.
- cgh 2y ago
  Konqueror says hello. I’m only half kidding, it was actually somewhat capable and I used it a lot. For those who don’t know, its legacy was khtml, famously forked into WebKit and Blink.
  - pino82 2y ago
    I cannot remember a moment when Konqueror felt good enough for me as a daily driver, but it was impressive anyways. From a community perspective, it would have been a great thing to push it forward further, spend resources on it, and have at least one web browser that isn't somewhat wicked. Admittedly, back then, we all hoped that Firefox would be that 'friendly' browser, and it probably truly was at that time. Time has changed. Now I'm forced to like a browser that is always just slightly less evil than a one that would even IE look friendly. And with every version we are now waiting when they also will drop the manifest v2 support for dubious reasons. And even if that will never happen, they will continue to find other ways to disappoint me. Yes, khtml was at least a nice time to remember. :) PS: My personal feeling is that "impressive but not good enough as a daily driver" was and is true for some more KDE apps. This is why I use Plasma Desktop, but barely any more of their apps than Dolphin and maybe kate to some degree. I know all you're going to say now about free software and how it works and so on, and you're right, but technically, it would be sooo much better if just half of the email client projects (or office suites, IDEs, photo editing, ...; you name it) would exist, but with more developer powers behind it. But I'm digressing......

kiwijamo 2y ago

Sadly I now see sites refusing to work unless you use Chrome even though there is no technical reason whatsoever why it should break under other standards-complaint browsers. I've seen all sort of tricks to detect non-Chrome-usage and the result is anything from a snarky message advising you to use Chrome (sometimes a very specific version and OS is specified as well!) at best or a blank page at worst. And yes every time I've seen this, it's happened on public facing sites -- I'm lucky that at $WORKPLACE we are a Microsoft shop, and Microsoft (ironically) seems to put some effort into ensuring their tools works across all the 3 major browser engines (with the possible exception of Teams but I reluctantly use the Electron app for that). Chrome has become the modern day IE. The mainstream population just haven't realized that yet to be fair, but this will become clear in the years to come and the next generation will wonder how the heck both IE and later Chrome become dominant.

deaddodo 2y ago
> and Microsoft (ironically) seems to put some effort into ensuring their tools works across all the 3 major browser engines I don't know why that's ironic. The Microsoft web teams have always had a focus on being fairly standards compliant. The Microsoft Browser team themselves definitely went down a route of stagnation with IE6, but a lot of that had to do with W3C's stagnation as much as Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior. They also implemented massively useful technologies that are ubiquitous today, such as XHR. They get a bad rap, for deserved reasons, but that decade of stagnation and non-Standard ActiveX controls wasn't fully on them.